Speaking up about coming out

May 3, 2014

Updated May 6, 2014 5:36 p.m.

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Chapman University defensive lineman Mitch Eby came out as gay to the football team on March 18. He was accepted by this teammates and is relieved to be able to live his life without secrets. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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Chapman University defensive lineman Mitch Eby came out as gay to the football team on March 18. He was accepted by this teammates and is relieved to be able to live his life without secrets. PAUL RODRIGUEZ , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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Chapman University defensive lineman Mitch Eby came out as gay to the football team on March 18. He was accepted by this teammates and is relieved to be able to live his life without secrets. PAUL RODRIGUEZ , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

1 of 5

Chapman University defensive lineman Mitch Eby came out as gay to the football team on March 18. He was accepted by this teammates and is relieved to be able to live his life without secrets. PAUL RODRIGUEZ , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

1 of 5

Chapman University defensive lineman Mitch Eby came out as gay to the football team on March 18. He was accepted by this teammates and is relieved to be able to live his life without secrets. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Chapman University defensive lineman Mitch Eby came out as gay to the football team on March 18. He was accepted by this teammates and is relieved to be able to live his life without secrets. PAUL RODRIGUEZ, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

ORANGE – He had made himself sick of living a half-life, half-lie in defense of the deepest, scariest secret he couldn’t share with his family, his best friends, his Chapman University football coach, his teammates, his two roommates and everyone close to him.

Mitch Eby has known he is gay since he was in middle school in Santa Monica and starting to have “thoughts I couldn’t understand, thoughts I couldn’t explain, thoughts I couldn’t talk to anyone about,” he said.

He believed being gay would make him unliked and unaccepted by everyone. He thought he would lose their love, their respect and their company. So he lived in the closet, slowly suffocating, feeling that loneliness was better than risking their rejection.

Eby, 21, half-heartedly dated girls. He thought that’s what society said guys are supposed to do. He forced himself through the motions, just as he would as a reserve defensive lineman following the coach’s game plan.

He tried, he said, “but it just wasn’t fully there for me.”

Eby – by all appearances a handsome, fit, Chapman junior; an A-student, football player and single man – made excuses to keep him from engaging socially with women. He contrived stories to get out of going to the football formals, knowing he didn’t want to bring a female date.

He stayed quiet or laughed along when his teammates, from youth leagues through college, made “gay” and “fag” jokes. The comments hurt him privately and steeled him to pretend more, omit details more and, at times, lie more – all to sink deeper into hiding himself more.

That is, until this year, when he felt like he couldn’t breathe anymore.

“I was sick and tired of living and hiding,” he said. “I was so consumed by it, tired of it ... (I) wanted to be honest and open about myself to everyone who really matters to me.”

Eby began spending late nights searching the Internet for coming-out stories and YouTube videos. He wrote emails to athletes who’d come out, notably Conner Mertens, a redshirt freshman kicker at Willamette University who in January came out as bisexual.

He called gay advocates for advice, among them Outsports journalist Cyd Ziegler. He drew inspiration reading about Michael Sam, the University of Missouri defensive end who publicly announced he was gay on ESPN in February at the end of his college career and before the NFL draft.

Alone, Eby grew comfortable calling himself “gay,” though the label describes just a part of him and is still so loaded that he sometimes talks around it.

“I’m gay,” he’d tell himself, then say out loud when he was alone at nights or while riding his bike to school. “I’m gay,” he’d admit, he’d repeat, he’d accept.

Then, in March, Eby, this tough, fearless football player, made his most courageous move – not of his life, but so he can live one.

He had a coming-out game plan: tell the people closest to him, his family, first and in person. Then he’d tell his coach and his football team roommates. And then, finally, the world.

During spring break, in early March, he returned to his Santa Monica home and one night, was watching television in the living room with his parents, David, a baseball and football coach, and his mother, Marla, a marketing professional.

“I need to tell to you about something,” he said, knowing they would love and support him. “I’m gay.”

Then it was quiet for about a minute, which felt excruciatingly long.

“OK,” David Eby said. “That doesn’t change how we feel about you. It doesn’t need to be a focus of your life or conversation from here on out.”

Then they all went back to watching television as if nothing happened. There were no questions, no visible reactions, no “We’ve known the whole time.” Nothing.

Eby slept well that night, having told the two people he was most afraid to tell. He told his younger brother, Kyle, the next day, who hugged him and said, “I don’t care.”

On March 17, Eby, a TV/broadcast major, was working with Chapman football coach Bob Owens on a video for the team’s charity project. But Eby chickened out, twice, from having the coming-out conversation with the coach that he knew would set the tone for the team.

Finally, Eby asked for a few minutes to talk and then shut the door to Owens’ office. He told Owens that he had been struggling with his orientation and that he wanted to address the team the next day.

“It’s not a big deal if you want to tell the team or not. You don’t have to do it,” said Owens, who has had three gay players on his team in past seasons. “Don’t do it for anybody else. Do it for yourself.”

That night, Eby returned to the off-campus home he shares with defensive end Kurt Cofer and running back Kean Stancil. He told them while watching a basketball game.

“You two deserve to know something before other people find out,” Eby said. “I’m gay.”

Their reaction was comforting but somewhat anticlimactic, the revelation being so enormous to him but of little consequence to his tolerant friends: “You’re one of our best friends. This changes nothing,” they said.

But the response changed everything for Eby, who left them watching sports. He went to his bedroom and had the confidence to write out a speech he would give to his 60 teammates the next day, at their final meeting of spring season.

In a football meeting room on March 18, Eby went to the podium and placed his speech in front of him.

“I came up here to talk to you guys about something that I’ve been dealing with for quite a while. It’s something personal that I’ve always thought I could just bury away, but I can’t,” Eby said, taking his time and making sure to look up from the paper to find connections with the audience.

“We live life so worried about how other people view us that we forget about ourselves. I can no longer go on living in fear, repressing myself because of how society may view me. I can no longer lie to my friends, family and teammates. It’s time I lived life for myself for a change.”

And then he leaped:

“I am ready to share with you all that I am gay.”

Eby went on to speak of his struggles and to ask for their respect.

“Being gay may be something that defines me, but it doesn’t limit me,” he said, his head high and proud.

“I am the same person you all know, no different than before.”

He told them that he was “still the same kid” obsessing over sports, practicing and playing hard, wanting to win and being called the nickname “Mom” because of how he often rallied up the players to have lunch together and make sure they were ready to play.

“I am your teammate. I am your classmate. And I am your brother,” he said. “And I know that my brothers will continue to stand by my side, no matter what.”

There was a brief moment of silence, his teammates captivated and not sure he was finished.

“So how about some pizza?” Eby said, breaking the tension that quickly turned to laughter, applause and cheers.

One by one, players approached him with handshakes and congratulations. They told him he was brave. Some later emailed and texted him, writing that they were happy to be trusted with the truth. One player told him, “You’re my hero.”

Eby hasn’t received one negative response to his coming out. Word spread throughout the campus, especially after a March 31 article in Outsports, which reported that Eby, who will return to play his senior season, is the first active college football player to publicly come out.

When that story ran, he was so worried what people would think that day that he didn’t go to class. He shut off his phone, stayed away from the computer and slept.

The next day, he did everything he would normally do.

He went to class, his senses heightened to search for people who might be staring. Nobody was.

He went to lunch with his teammates, listening carefully to see if they spoke differently to him. Nobody did.

He went to work out with the football team, looking for teammates who might try to avoid him. They didn’t.

“The biggest surprise was that everything was back to normal so quickly,” said Eby. “The people I thought would have the worst reaction were among the people who were the friendliest after.”

The fear had paralyzed him for so long that he has felt nothing but relief in the past two months. He has begun living a whole life.

“I’m definitely happier,” he said Monday. “I’m not hiding anymore.”

More than 250 people have written him, some asking for advice. He has responded to each one.

Chapman University President Jim Doti even wrote Eby an email congratulating him on his courage. Gay and lesbian campus groups offered their support. Former teachers and coaches from Santa Monica sent him messages, saying they were proud of him.

Most of all, Eby, for the first time in his life, could be proud of the only person who counted the whole time.

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